I was very interested to read your comments regarding the proposal to fine bad landlords. It is justifiable to punish those who live off the proceeds of crime or allow their tenants to blight the lives of their neighbours.

I do however hope these fines are also going to be applied to social landlords such as housing associations and councils. There are many examples of social landlords not doing enough to protect decent tenants from yobs that they have housed, often in the most unsuitable areas, in the full knowledge of their past behaviour patterns.

I am currently dealing with a young family who got so desperate because of their neighbours' behaviour and the lack of action from their social landlord that they had to move, leaving them to find private accommodation that they can ill afford, and being refused to be re-housed by their original social landlord.

Perhaps a £20,000 fine would make them think twice about who they house and where they house them.

On the other side of the coin, the law should take into account the difficulty faced by ordinary people renting second properties who can face great difficulties with tenants they believe to be fine and then turn out to be living nightmares.

Perhaps the laws protecting tenants should be relaxed if they cannot behave and the process of eviction speeded up for those causing others such grief.